One Step Forward Is A Step Ahead: The Power Of Making Small Changes

Krista Garret is a successful entrepreneur, and she is candid about her journey to overcome personal challenges to arrive at this point in her life. Krista embarked on the path to become a business owner with great aspirations, and while she followed through and created a successful business, she began to stumble and slip when her achievements brought more responsibilities that began to overwhelm her.

By the time she came to me for business coaching services, she was at the end of her rope. Krista had too much at stake to wait for the problems to go away, so she reached out for help. Together, we established steps to resolve the issues that stood between her and further successes.

Initially, Krista focused on her personal habits. “I was not always an organized person,” Krista said. In her own self-assessment, she considered these vital skills as lacking in her skill-set. Consequently, she struggled with time-management and goal setting. While these are run-of-the-mill sounding concerns, for Krista and many others, they can quickly snowball into much larger issues.

Without a sense of organization for her day, Krista grouped everything into large to-do lists. Every day, she faced this large list of tasks until eventually, she built up a sense of dread about the day ahead. “I didn’t know where to begin.”  The list set unrealistic goals that led to an overwhelming sensation of failure because nothing was ever crossed-off the list. She began to lose sleep worrying about the next day and worse, she began to feel frozen, unable to move the dial on anything. She had to do something; “I knew in my soul that I didn’t want to give up,” Krista said.

When she started coaching with me, she came with her negative mind-set intact. She held an expectation that others would judge her with the same judgements she levied against herself, so while she was willing to talk, she steeled herself to feel shame. However, quickly within the first phone call, Krista realized that coaching was not about judging and pushing but supporting and guiding.

“I was told, ‘You have things that suck, and it’s defined you up to this point. Change going forward and you can change the narrative.’ I felt instant relief!” Krista gained permission to allow the circumstances of the past to define a phase of her life, ending her perception that she was a failure. Her circumstances were not caused by a personal, fatal flaw but rather by flawed habits that had developed into a negative framework. She could let go of the pattern and change her approach, ultimately changing her story.

Working with a small business coach, Krista learned to generate realistic goals based on her tasks. Instead of writing a mammoth to-do list about everything, she approached each task and broke it down. First, she names the task and then segments the steps to completion as the to-do list. Now, she asks herself, “What can I do in ten minutes increments to accomplish this step? The next step?”

The smaller time-frame felt better than a big list of large, time-consuming items. At last, it was all manageable. She began to cross more off the list, adding to a sense of accomplishment. Before, her feelings of failure were perpetuated when she stalled at conquering a huge, imposing to-do list, and now, she had manageable actions to take and complete, building her self-confidence again.

It was transformative. “I felt better because more got done, I was more productive, and I was less overwhelmed,” she said. Krista experienced a breakthrough, and she only progressed from there. The coaching strategies helped Krista make small changes to move forward and create momentum. She started meeting goals, getting plans done in advance and not last minute, and she began to feel accomplished. Her productivity increased, and her outlook changed for the positive, keeping her motivated.

“Get momentum; once it starts, it doesn’t stop!” she said.

In the end, Krista accomplished a complete turn-around.

With the right support, Krista was able re-frame her mindset and believe in herself again. “I needed to hear someone tell me, ‘With hard work and determination, you will succeed,’ because I had lost faith in my ability to achieve,” Krista said.

If you relate to Krista’s story, feel stuck, overwhelmed, or hold onto feelings like failure, shame, or negativity, don’t wait to contact me. Through business and life coaching we can work together to break negative cycles and figure out your next steps so that you can move forward, get momentum, and experience greater success. You don’t have to struggle alone, and you don’t have to stay in a bad place. Let’s re-write your narrative into one that ends as a success-story like Krista.

xo

Jennifer

SCHEDULE A BREAKTHROUGH CALL NOW